


Something Borrowed

by Pi (Rhea)



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, TRK spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 19:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6720877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After graduation, Neil and Andrew go on a road trip to return particular items to Neil's mother's contacts. </p><p>Or: two times Neil visited the Henrietta, Virginia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Borrowed

Neil first visited Henrietta when he was thirteen. It was the second time he and  his mother had returned to the East Coast, the closest he’d been to Baltimore since his mother fled with him. It made Neil’s skin itch, looking out at the sunrise and calculating the hours it would take for his father to arrive. His mother’s explanation for the stop, when she pulled up in front of an abandoned trailer in a rundown trailer park on the edge of town was as minimal as any other place they’d been. One of the old family contacts, another immigrant but from the Irish side rather than the English, lived in the area. They’d met briefly with old friends across five countries by that point. Mostly they stayed places nobody knew them, but his mother’s network kept them informed and sometimes they had to go places so she could add particular items to their small bags for reasons Neil still doesn’t know enough to understand. Sometimes the old friends would take pot shots at his mother before they could get further than the front porch, others she’d spend hours talking with, planning and untangling the web of power the Butcher held over them. Neil’s mother was strong, the strongest, to be able to protect them, to escape, but they both knew running forever wasn’t an option. Some part of Neil was aware that his mother way searching for a way out, but the rest of his young mind shied away from the knowledge that the need for a way out meant a closing tunnel, a wall ahead of them that Neil couldn’t face then, was never ready for. 

 

The trailer they stayed at wasn’t even a double wide, smaller and shabby from lack of use. Neil’s oversized clothes and the bruises of exhaustion under his mother’s eyes fit in there. Other children gathered on the dusty drives of the trailer park, kicking around a soccer ball or talking, but Neil had already learned not to make friends. Instead he read, not in the trailer, but out under the sky, where he could spot someone coming long before they reached him. The trailer park was surrounded by the dry summer grass, younger kids catching grass hoppers or playing marbles in trampled dirt circles so Neil went farther afield. An hour or so up the road he found trees where he could climb just high enough to be invisible and disappear into his book. His mother was gone most of the time. 

 

When Neil was even younger and he hadn’t learned yet, he’d wander off by himself to where other people were, but by then he’d learned his lesson about exploring busier areas. Spending all his time in the trees wasn’t more lonesome. Trees are comfortingly familiar everywhere. Back then, when he had to talk to other people he had to remember what name he was currently using.

 

His mother knew him well enough to find him, one afternoon just before they moved on again. They’d been in Henrietta just less than a month, a long enough time that Neil knew they’d be moving on soon.

“Abram?” His mother called and Neil had dropped quietly down from his hiding place. He remembers her approving nod. “We’re leaving, are you packed.” Neil hadn’t unpacked. They loaded the few bags into the car and his mother drove them out of town. They didn’t go very far though, her path turning them corkscrews into a neighboring valley. The trees grew into darker, older sentinels around them, before the road spilled out into a single gravel drive, crunching up to a house. 

“Come inside.” His mother ordered, which is how Neil knew this must be her contact. 

“Do they know me?” Neil had asked. 

“Niall knows you’re my Abram.” His mother confirmed and Neil breathed out a sigh. Easier not having to pretend. “He has three children, the oldest is away at a camp but the younger two are here, play nice.”  She meant watch his mouth, Neil shrugged. Even when he tried it didn’t make much of a difference, it’s better when he just said nothing, but that’s not being nice.

 

The house was a strange and wondrous place. Neil almost tripped over a mechanical mouse that whizzed by him in the kitchen where Aurora, the tall beautiful blond woman who did look like the Disney Cartoon of Sleeping Beauty with her gentle smile and sharp cheekbones poured him a glass of lemonade. 

“The boys should be in soon.” She reassured Neil. Neil didn’t much care. He didn’t like being left with a babysitter, but Aurora is pleasant enough. Neil remembers wishing he’d brought his book, but his mother had made him leave it in the car because it would be rude. Aurora asked some vague questions about his schooling and his travels but Neil didn’t answer because it was always possible she wasn’t as sweet as she seemed. That lesson Neil had learned too. If his mother wasn’t with him, he shouldn’t talk to other adults, and sometimes even then. 

 

The side door to the kitchen banged open and two boys stormed into the house. The first one was taller than Neil, though probably close to his same age and the younger one had the same angelic golden hair as his mother. 

“Matthew, Ronan!” Aurora greeted them delighted, “Abram and his mother are visiting.” Mathew smiled at Neil widely but Ronan’s expression was closer to a smirk. Not malevolent, but like he knew a secret Neil didn’t. 

“We found an entire field of butterflies!” Matthew crowed, accepting a quick hug from his mother. “Do you like butterflies?” he asked Neil. Neil shrugged. 

“Or we could show him the aviary.” Ronan kicked at Matthew’s heel, “That’s way cooler. Hey, where are you from?” 

Neil shrugged, “North of here.” 

“Do you like penguins?” Matthew asked. 

Neil shrugged, “they’re neat.” 

“We should definitely take him to the aviary.” Matthew agreed. Ronan was already opening the back door again. Neil hesitated. Since his mother and Niall disappeared into an office, they hadn’t come back. Neil didn’t want to stray too far. He glanced fractionally at Aurora, gauging her expression. Her face was serene and warm as when he first met her. 

“Your mother said you’re staying for dinner, Ronan will make sure you’re back before then!” She raised the last as a command and her son nodded dutifully, though he ducked from beneath her attempt to brush his hair down to complacency. 

 

Neil followed in the brothers’ wake, up the grassy slope of a hill and through an orchard of fragrant trees with fruit Neil hadn’t seen in a supermarket before. 

“Heirloom,” Ronan explained, “they’re apples but they look weird.” 

“Okay.” Neil agreed, though he wasn’t totally sure, but he didn’t know anything about fruit, and Ronan lived here. The aviary as a large glass building on the far side of a pond. It reminded Neil of greenhouse, only one wing of it clearly had snow inside, penguins sidling into an icy pool. Neil pressed a hand to the cold glass. Niall and Aurora had to be really rich, no wonder his mother had stopped here. 

“Come on.” Ronan said, “the tropical area is warmer.” Neil wasn’t sure he wanted to be warmer that the Virginia summer, but he could see a few curling blood red flowers, pressed against the fogged window of the other end of the glass building, and something about their unfolding made him crave a closer look. 

 

Neil didn’t care much for the birds, but the plants of the tropical portion of the aviary were fascinating, more colors and shapes than Neil had known plants could have, the strange alien orchids and the sharp spikes of carnivorous plants carefully marked as dangerous in small hand labeled placards.

“Where did they all come from?” Neil had asked, carefully keeping his hands tucked behind his back.

“My dad’s business,” Ronan explained, “He travels all over, gets all kinds of neat things.” Neil swallowed.

“He sounds like a good father.” 

“He tells the best stories!” Matthew agreed. 

 

Neil watched Niall carefully over dinner. The man had a bright smile and a full laugh, and he and Neil’s mother exchanged stories about people they both knew with the familiarity of long distance friends. Niall’s stories were better than the ones Neil’s mother told. Aurora laughed along with her husband, the kind of fairytale princess laugh that made birds outside the open dining room windows twitter back. Aurora rubbed gravy off Matthew’s cheek and Ronan happily shoved mashed potatoes in his mouth. What would it be like, Neil had wondered, to live in a place filled with such abundance. Abundance of family and forks and hand sewn quilts and pets and high-end electronic appliances that Neil stared at because he couldn’t be sure what it was they were supposed to do. Out in the car, Neil’s entire life could fit in a bag he could carry on his own back if he had to run. The thought made him push his mushy peas around his plate, even though that made his mother glare at him. 

 

They left after dinner. Then his mother died and Neil decided he might as well play Exy in high school, it couldn’t hurt anything, and Wymack and Andrew found him. The next time he came to Henrietta wasn’t until the summer after Graduation. 

—

“Tell me a road trip isn’t running.” Andrew says.

“It’s not running. I have places to go, people I need to tell…about everything.” Neil shrugs. There wasn’t an easy way to explain it, the coordinates and names and directions in the coded pages of his binder. His mother had made promises and now that the Butcher was dead, Neil didn’t want any of them unexpectedly coming home to roost. He had the money now, and a guaranteed spot at Court, no need to hold on to the last remainders of years of running. “I’ve already made a downpayment on the house. It’s not like I wont be coming back.” 

“The house is a stupid plan.”

“It’s still cheaper than renting.  Nicky needs somewhere to stay when he and Erik visit. There will be enough rooms for all of them.” Andrew doesn’t scoff because the argument is weeks old. Andrew’s name is next to Neil’s on the lease, so Neil’s fairly certain the continued bitching is for show. When Neil had broken down and admitted to Andrew’s supposedly sleeping back, “I’ve never had anywhere I could call home before” Andrew’s shoulders had pressed back against Neil’s and Neil had suspected that Andrew’s objections were going to continue, but only superficially. Andrew was the one who’d gotten them both new sets of keys with the new house keys in leopard print. 

“Well,” Andrew says, “If we’re actually doing this, we’re visiting the Grand Canyon.” 

“Fine.” Neil agrees, because as long as they’re done by October, his plans aren’t too specific.

 

“Look at that car!” It’s such a surprising exclamation that Neil immediately looks for trouble, checking for a tail and swerving slightly in his lane before he registers that Andrew’s laughing. “Pull over!” Andrew points. In the pull off for one of the overlooks there’s a bright orange, vintage camaro.

“It is Fox colors.” Neil agrees appreciatively. Neil doesn’t care about cars the way Andrew does but he pulls into the empty parking spot next to it. Andrew hops up and slowly circles the other vehicle.

“Try not to look like your casing it out to break in.” Neil protests.

“Are you going to try to break in to it?” A voice asks sharply behind him. The woman behind him is slightly shorter than Andrew but she’s got that same bigger than the space she occupies vibe. Not dangerous in the way Andrew is dangerous, when he turns, a sly smile playing over his face, clearly ready to play havoc with the locals. Neil steps in before Andrew can cause legitimate trouble.

“No intentions of breaking in, only appreciating the color.”

“And the car.” Andrew frowns at Neil sliding back around the camaro to stand beside him and stare down the spiky-pixie-cut, ripped t-shirt, head-kicking boots lady in front of them. “I’d love to see what’s under the hood.” Neil is fairly certain that Andrew is being genuine about the request actually. The woman shifts her weight back a bit, rolling the question off one shoulder.

“Well your car certainly looks fancy,” she says.

“The best insurance money could buy.” Andrew agrees. Neil sighs. Why he let Andrew convince him to take this car he’s not quiet sure. Probably because Andrew can speed on the empty roads of middle America and Neil has always appreciated the ability to get out of somewhere fast. There’s a low whistle behind. Andrew turns, letting Neil keep an eye on the woman while he appraises the two new people coming back from the low concrete rest-stand hut. 

“As one person who can appreciate a good car to another,” the man holds out his hand, “Richard Campbell Gansey the Third.” Andrew does not take his hand, he does meet Neil’s eyes and to give him an exaggerated eyebrow raise. 

“Nice to meet you.” Neil replies when it looks like Andrew is going to loose all of his social graces. “Are you also on a road trip?” There’s a case of water in the back seat of the camaro and a cooler visible, piles of pillows and blankets shoved to one side. 

“It’s our second time to the Canyon.” The Asian guy with hair that manages to get even more lift than the girl’s speaks up. 

“Our first.” Neil offers. 

“Oh, then you definitely want to check out the South Rim,” she informs him. “Are you planning on doing any hiking?” Neil looks at Andrew. Andrew cocks his head. 

“Maybe.”

“Do you have a map?” 

 

Neil pops the passenger side door and rifles through the pocket, eventually finding the Grand Canyon area map they’d picked up when they stopped at the Visitor’s Center briefly. When he opens it up, a postcard for Henrietta, Virginia falls out. One of his mother’s lockers in Idaho Falls had contained a handful of the things, postcards of places with people she’d meant to return to. Neil bends to hastily snatch it off the pavement, but the woman’s gotten there first. She holds the postcard between two fingers, her eyes tracing its edges before she looks at him oddly. She doesn’t hand the postcard over. Neil watches her. Andrew shifts to his side, suddenly looming. When Richard Campbell Gansey the Third lays a hand on the woman’s shoulder, Neil can feel them forming battle lines. He intentionally breathes out any concern.

“You know Henrietta?” Neil asks with a smile.

“I grew up there,” she explains. “How do you know it?” Her tone isn’t accusatory, just curious and Neil lets his smile turn a little more real. He sways just enough to press his shoulder against Andrew’s, feeling him relax fractionally. 

“My mom and I visited there once when I was a kid. Extended Irish Catholic families and that kind of thing.” 

The woman blinks. “Ronan Lynch?” Neil blinks back.

“Blue, there are probably other Irish Catholics in Henrietta,” Richard Campbell Gansey the Third corrects.

“Actually, I think one of the kids was a Ronan.” Neil hesitates a moment, but of course there’s no reason that anyone in Henrietta would remember a Neil Josten. Neil Josten has only been official for four years. “Neil Josten.” He says, holding his hand out to Richard Campbell Gansey the Third to pick up where Andrew left off.

“Gansey.” Gansey says.

“Blue,” the the woman puts in.

“You’re Neil Josten. Like the Foxes’ Neil Josten?” the Asian guy with the gravity defying hair exclaims. His eyes dart to Andrew and back to Neil. “Josten and Minyard?” He guesses after a minute. Andrew coils beside Neil. “I’m Henry Cheng.” Henry continues, words tumbling out as he sticks his hand forward, “I’m a big fan.” He pumps Neil’s arm aggressively. “Wow, this is so amazing. Who would have thought we would meet at the Grand Canyon.” Both Blue and Gansey are looking at him a bit askance. “NCAA Class 1 Exy! The Palmetto State Foxes. They took the championship more years in a row than- and you’re both going to Court now. Oh! Is this a last chance road trip? Are you going on an adventure?” Neil coughs, Andrew looks vaguely murderous.

“Something like that.” Neil nods. “You were saying about hiking?” he turns to Blue. Unfazed, she flips his map around a few times before she starts tapping trial heads. Neil can tell Andrew’s taking careful mental notes and it make him smile. 

“Thanks.” Neil says when she eventually winds down.

“No problem. Have a good road trip.” She smiles brightly and follows Henry around to the far side of the camaro. She kicks the door a few times before it opens properly and climbs in. Gansey is still staring at Neil oddly, the ‘there’s something familiar about your face’ expression Neil sometimes gets. Mostly now it’s ‘I saw you in a headline once and that scar is hard to forget’ but Gansey’s eyes aren’t fixed there. After a moment he shakes his head slightly and smiles.

“Gansey, you’re driving this time!” Blue calls from inside the car. 

“Nice to meet you gentlemen,” Gansey says to them, before climbing in and starting the motor. It purrs to life at the slightest turn of his key. Andrew cocks his head to listen. 

“That’s some car,” he mutters as the camaro pulls out of the overlook parking lot. “So, tell me about Henrietta.”

—

It’s three weeks later when they take an exit for Henrietta, driving up the coast. Neil still avoids Baltimore and D.C., a negative-space chunk of land he refuses to return to. His mother’s contact in Georgia had moved to a nursing home, but the old, partially blind woman had grinned gapily at Neil and Andrew. “Mary Hartford’s boy!” she’d said, crooking a finger at Neil. “Sit.” So Neil had sat and answered a few questions about his mother’s death, his father’s death. It was almost becoming routine. Somehow with repetition and time the words were getting easier, or at least more removed from the emotions attached to them. Some of the places they went, his mother’s contacts had moved on, other places houses and apartments were eerily similar to Neil’s memories. Neil had started with a small bag of items to return. Most of them didn’t make much sense, a little red book with writing in a language Neil had never seen before, a small wooden box that rattled when he shook it but had no clear way of opening, a necklace he remembered his mother wearing with a free floating black arrow in a little gold circle. He remembered the arrow spinning crazily as he hauled his mother into the car, his head ducked low to miss any bullets, tearing out of the parking lot for the lake his mother had brought him too. The city was full of lakes, why she’d chosen that one then, Neil will never know. As they tore up the residential street away from Neil’s mother’s blood splashed at his father’s feet, Neil felt like the arrow, spinning and spinning with no place to stop. He had returned the box to a man in Arizona who didn’t explain but patted Neil’s hand and moved to place it in a glass case with one of those fake three eyed skulls. The little red book was for a family in Florida, but no one could remember them when Neil asked around the small town that was written on the postcard detailing the return. Neil kept the book stuffed down in the bottom of the bag, wrapped in wax paper and double bagged in ziploc, like he’d found it. The little gold necklace was bound for Henrietta. No matter how Neil tilted it now, the arrow didn’t spin. 

 

“They close their main street for a Farmer’s Market?” Andrew’s lip curls when the car is faced with the roadblock. 

“It’s not like we can’t go around,” Neil points out. Andrew shakes his head.

“No, if we’re going to be here we might as well. I’m starving.” Neil drives back  few blocks to find a place to park and they walk down into the chaos of people and brightly colored stalls. There’s someone selling honey and someone selling bread. There’s a table for a psychic with candles and statuettes stacked over the paisley table cloths that catches Neil’s attention. Before he can drift too far in that direction, Andrew’s caught his arm, hauling him towards a stall advertising whiskey caramels in curling cursive letters. Neil allows himself to be distracted by samples. There’s a store of flowers and a store of jams but most of the other awnings are vegetables. 

“Milk, meat, vegetables, alcohol and art.” Andrew smirks, “that’s a full farm.” The stall he jerks his head towards proudly reads “Lynch” in sharp black letters. There can’t be that many Lynches in Henrietta, and Neil remembers the sprawling possibility of the Barns. 

 

Neil doesn’t recognize the girl standing behind the register. Her wispy blond hair is tucked up under a page boy cap, curling out in the summer afternoon humidity. With her waifish frame and slightly-too-large overalls she looks like one of those big eyed art portraits, child farmer. Most of the other stalls this size have at least two people working there. The psychic had three women and a man in a business suit and their stall had been a quarter of the size. Though perhaps the man in crisp gray had been a patron, though he’d been sitting behind the cash register, seeming not to know how out of place he appeared. 

 

The far side of the Lynch stall is all creatively shaped and colored glass and metal, twisting almost organic shapes delicate in their sharpness. Their are a few wooden ones as well, they almost remind Neil of the box, the way they seemed more grown than carved. It’s strange how the art shifted to vegetables, the fruit as exotic and colorful as the glass so that the move from one to the other was a fuzzy demarcation at best. Neil remembered the heirloom apples, though these were clearly of a tomato based variety, judging by the hand lettered signs in violent black sharpie. Then over towards the register and the far side of the stall are massive coolers, the laminate signs above them declaring the price of milk and eggs and yogurt, how much for a leg of mutton and how much for a whole pig. Andrew had clearly found the alcohol, his hands jammed in his pockets as his eyes flick over the table with it’s marching line of brown glass bottles and cluster of tall green ones. 

“Apparently they supply the whisky for the caramel place.” Andrew says when Neil draws up to him. Neil picks up a bottle turning it to see the hand drawn label. The tree with stars caught in it’s branches reminds him a little of the flag of Gondor. Neil wonders if Lynch is a secret Tolkien fan. Andrew grabs the bottle out of Neil’s hand and replaces it with a different one. Neil goes up to the desk to purchase it. The girl’s voice is small but clear and she efficiently takes his card, swiping it over the reader with a few clever taps of her fingers. Neil thinks about asking for Niall but decides that can wait. Instead, he and Andrew go get pizza because the farmers market had surprisingly little prepared food for sale. 

 

The farmers market breaks down by two pm and the road is clear. Neil turns the car out of town, following the directions on the postcard and his own memories down the turning road into the valley. The house almost looks the same. The paint is different and there’s a turret Neil can’t remember from his first visit. The side yard is now a sprawling vegetable garden, squash vines curling elegantly and at least one pumpkin that’s preparing to compete for a national size competition if it’s already that large. There’s a man bent among the trellises, his skin and sharp black tattoo flashing in and out of the greenery as he works. Andrew runs appreciative eyes over the man’s muscled back. Neil still hasn’t figured out the ability to assess attractiveness at a first glance, but Andrew is a good barometer. 

“That’s the Lynch kid?” Andrew asks. Neil shrugs because at this distance, he can’t tell. The man turns as their tires crunch over the gravel, rolling up to park next to a slick silver BMW. 

“If it’s him, he had more hair when I last met him.” Neil puts the car in park and hands Andrew the keys. They shut their doors in tandem and Andrew leans against the hood while Neil takes a few steps forward, raising a hand in greeting.

“Lynch?” 

“Who’s asking?” the tattooed man replies. 

“Abram Hatford.” Neil says. He can see the other man mentally searching to place him, the new hair and eye color, the puckering shiny pink of one cheekbone and the sharp white slash of scar over the other. “My mother and I came here when I was a kid. Your dad gave us something I’m supposed to return, I think.” The man throws his tool to the ground. The blade end sinks in easily and he steps over the handle.

“Ronan Lynch,” he says. “We showed you the penguins.” It’s not precisely a question. Andrew stares at Neil. Neil’s pretty sure he hadn’t believed about the penguins.

“Do you still have them?” Neil asks.

“Nah,” Ronan shakes his head. “The zoo was my dad’s thing.” As if to negate his words, a raven flaps down to land on his shoulder. He gives it a little bump and the bird rides the motion with familiarity. “They’re in D.C. now,” Ronan continues. Neil wonders if that means at a zoo or in someone else’s collection. “Come inside,” Ronan says. 

 

The interior of the house has also changed. Rooms are wider than Neil remembered and there are more plants curling down from the ceiling or running over the window sills. A lot of the doors have gnaw marks around he moldings at a remarkably tall height, closer to that of a child than a pet. Neil follows Ronan back towards where he remembers the kitchen. He almost expects to see Aurora, pouring lemonade and looking ageless, but there’s another man in the kitchen. His hair is a dusty brown, his skin a tan only a few shades deeper. If it weren’t for the beautiful strangeness of his face, he might have been the same slippery pallet that Neil’s mother had taught him to paint himself. This man doesn’t blend in. He has flour hand prints on the thighs of his pants and fingers full of tomato juice. 

“Ronan, I-“ He looks up at all of them in the doorway and pauses. “You didn’t tell me we’d be having company.” 

Ronan jerks a shoulder in a partial shrug. “I didn’t know they were coming. Abram, this is Adam, Adam, Abram. His mother was friends with my father.” Adam’s mouth flashes downwards, a suppressed concerned expression. The raven launches herself off Ronan’s shoulder to land heavily on Adam’s and preen at his messy hair.

“It’s Neil now, actually,” Neil introduces himself to Adam. 

“I’d shake your hand, but.” Adam flicks tomato juice towards the sink. 

“This is Andrew.” Neil takes a step back so his shoulder can bump Andrew’s. Andrew crosses his arms over his chest and doesn’t offer his hand to anyone. 

“Do you want some lemonade?” Adam asks. Neil nods and Ronan kicks a stool at him. Neil sits on one and Andrew perches on the other. Adam rinses his hands before coming back to the island with glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. Ronan doesn’t sit down, but leans against the countertop of the island. 

“What the hell happened to your face?” 

Neil wonders how much Ronan’s father told him, where Ronan’s parents are. 

“My father,” Neil shrugs, rolling the words off his back uncomfortable and practiced. 

“Shit.” Ronan stares more intently. Adam pushes a glass across the table till it bumps up against Neil’s fingers. He can feel Adam’s eyes scouring over his face, can feel Andrew, ready at his side. 

“He’s dead now.” 

“Good riddance,” Ronan spits and Neil finds a sudden laugh bubbling up his throat. 

“Yeah.” 

 

Andrew doesn’t relax precisely, but he shifts back away from Neil, subtly standing down. Neil turns to flash him a quick grateful smile, aware of Andrew’s protection curled around him like spiky vines. He’s leaned on it more than he can count this trip. Neil fishes the bag from where he dropped it at his feet. 

“Your father gave my mother this,” he says and places the little gold necklace before Ronan. Bemused, Ronan picks it up, turning it in his hand. 

“What does it do?” Ronan asks. The question pricks Neil, like letting the air out of a balloon. So it was supposed to do something.

“It used to spin, before my father died.” 

“Hmm.” Ronan runs a finger of the chain. “Is your mother still alive?”

“No.” 

Ronan nods, like he knows better than to offer condolences to say something untrue like ‘she was a nice lady’.  On a fit of inspiration Neil grabs the book out of his bag as well.

“This was supposed to go back to a family in Florida, but I couldn’t find them. Maybe your father…?”

“He’s dead.” Ronan shakes his head, but he accepts the packet. He unwraps the book with care, spilling it out onto the counter without touching it. His lip curls in distaste. 

“It’s not in English.” Neil says. “What about your mother?”

“Dead.”

“I’m sorry.” Neil says, and he is. He could say ‘she was a nice woman’ and it would be the truth. He doesn’t. Ronan shrugs, and the raven flaps past his face landing on the floor behind him and skidding after a mechanical mouse. Ronan doesn’t dodge her as she passes, though her wingtips must skim the side of his face. He flips the book open with one insulting finger. 

“You can burn it for all I care.” Neil says. 

Ronan nods. “I can do that.” 

Neil shifts back from the table, swinging his legs down to the floor.

“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” Adam nods towards the chopped tomatoes.

“Do you still have the heirloom apples?” Neil asks. 

“A whole orchard full of them.” Ronan agrees. 

“Then we can make desert.” 

Andrew glares at him. “145%” he says.

“Me too,” Neil smiles amiably. “Should we pick them ourselves?” he asks Ronan. Ronan leads them up the hill to the orchard. Like Neil suspected, Andrew is quickly enchanted by the fruit trees. Ronan leaves them with their baskets. 

 

“Is it just me or is everything weird here.” Andrew sniffs one of the perfectly spherical fruits. 

“It’s weird.”

“And they really had penguins?”

“There was a greenhouse with an arctic section. I didn’t question the mechanics of that as a kid.”

“Unreal.” Andrew puts the fruit in his basket. Andrew is better at baking than Neil is, but he doesn’t like to cook alone.

Neil counts the contents of his basket. “Is that enough?” Andrew takes it and nods. They walk back down the hill, late afternoon sun beating sweat along his forehead. He sees a slim shape in a page boy cap dart between a pair of distant barns. Her gait has a strange loping roll to it, but she’s wearing coveralls he recognizes from the farmers market. The girl doesn’t return his wave.

“Weird.” Andrew says again. Neil pauses, catching the hand not holding a basket. Andrew’s fingers easily tangle with his and he halts.

“Not a bad weird though, right? We can go now if you want.”

Andrew shakes his head. “I ran away from home once, in foster care,” he says. “Small town California and everywhere else is desert. I was smart enough to bring food, but not smart enough to plan ahead. The first night I slept on cracked, salty earth, like a leftover lake bed. I woke up when my sleeves started to get wet. Water was seeping up out of the ground. I though maybe it was a flash flood.” Andrew shrugs. “But it was just a shallow lake, where I’d been sleeping.” It isn’t a story Neil’s heard before. Andrew has been doling them out in bits and pieces, stories of his childhood and time in the system. Some of them good, some of them bad. Neil safely keeps each one. It isn’t a secrets game, they don’t have many of those now, but perhaps it’s a truths game, this sharing of pieces neither of them have thought of in years. “I just wanted to leave, I was wet and cold. So I closed my eyes and walked straight ahead, and a few steps later I was in Idaho. They never did figure out how I got so far away.” Neil squeezes Andrew’s hand. Andrew turns back up to him, standing just slightly down the hill so that Neil has to bend when Andrew says, “Yes or no?” tugging Neil’s arm down. Neil steps forward and down to kiss him. 

 

“The oven’s set to 350.” Adam says when Neil and Andrew come back into the kitchen. The island is cleared of Adam’s cooking and Andrew rolls the fruit out onto it. One of the completely spherical ones continues off the far side and bounces down onto the floor. Neil isn’t certain he wants to eat fruit that bounces so well. Adam catches it before it can roll away. He tosses it to Neil and Neil snags it out of the air. He can feel Adam’s eyes trace the scars on his hands when they shine under the bright kitchen lights. 

“I have some paperwork to finish.” Adam says. “I’ll be in the study if you can’t find anything in here. Cutlery is top right, spices are the left cabinet, pie tins are that bottom drawer, most everything else you’ll need is probably in the fridge.”

“Thank you,” Neil says. 

 

Andrew wields the knife with speedy accurate strokes and Neil arranges the fruit into spirals in the tin, measures out spices and sugar. Andrew folds over the corners of pie crust and carves the quick outlines of a tree into the top to let out steam. The light has shifted, the way valleys get dark quickly, held in by hills and mountains even before sunset, and it leaves the kitchen windows dark around the interior ocean of light. Neil checks his watch.

“Forty five minutes.” Whatever is on the stove is starting to smell amazing. Adam has a pen tucked behind his ear when he comes back. He spares a glance for Andrew leaning against the island and Neil wiping up spilled flour. 

“Dinner in five.” Adam tells them, before presumably going to find Ronan to tell him the same.

 

It’s just the four of them around the large dining room table Neil remembers. Neil is a bit surprised the Farmer’s Market girl doesn’t join them, but he doesn’t ask about it. 

“So, what do you do?” Adam asks politely. 

“I play exy. We both start Court this fall.” 

“That’s the national team?” Adam confirms. Neil nods.

“What do you do?” Neil asks. Andrew stabs a piece of sausage out of his bowl. 

“I’m still in school.” Adam quirks a smile.

“That’s what happens when you get a Ph.D.” Ronan says. 

“You came to Henrietta when you were a kid?” Adam asks, “How long were you here for?”

“A month maybe,” Neil shrugs. “We stayed at a trailer park, so I wasn’t around town much. You probably wouldn’t have seen me.” Adam gives him an odd look and Ronan laughs harshly. 

“Man, you probably saw each other every day. Henrietta only has one trailer park.” 

“I didn’t talk to the other kids.” Neil shakes his head. “I was more of a climb a tree and read a book by myself kid. Oh, the alcohol labels. Are you a fan of Tolkien?” Neil asks Ronan.

“I don’t read much. Adam’s the book nerd.” 

“It’s not a direct reference. Something I heard once about trees reaching for the stars. It was a nice image.” Adam smiles. 

“Ah,” Neil casts about for another topic. “We met some people from Henrietta on the way here, actually. A few weeks ago at the Grand Canyon. A Richard something-something?”

“Campbell Gansey the Third,” Andrew supplies. Adam starts laughing. Andrew’s smile is closer to a snarl, but that’s not unusual. 

“What a small world.” Ronan bites, his smile is vicious in a friendly way. “Still the three of them, what are they up to?”

“We spoke to them last Friday,” Adam inhales deeply to control his laughter.

“External reports might be more accurate.”

“They were visiting the Grand Canyon, for the second time. The woman, Blue, gave us directions to some good hiking.” Adam nods as if this is expected. It’s hard to talk about mutual acquaintances when one of the parties doesn’t really know them. Neil thinks of his mother and Niall, regaling the table with stories. 

“Pie’s done.” Andrew says and stands. He shoves back from the table and stalks to the kitchen. Neil sighs. 

“Forgive him, he’s kind of an asshole.” He mutters apologetically to the other two. 

Adam laughs again, but softly this time. “I know the type,” he says. Ronan scoffs but doesn’t object. Their hands loop together on the table, comfortable and open. Neil looks at the elegant curl of Adam’s fingers, wrapped with Ronan’s as Andrew carries the pie out, his hands insulated in the fistfuls of his sweater sleeves. Neil wonders when he and Andrew will find that place. They carry the casual intimacy of a relationship between them, but mostly it’s in the body heat that seeps through the inches of air between them, the way Andrew’s cigarette smoke will cling in Neil’s hair, the knee of Andrew’s jeans bumping against his own under a table. Looking around Ronan’s home, Neil hopes that their new house might someday feel like this. Built for someone else perhaps, but reshaped to hold two particular people. _Home_. Andrew drops the pie and the knife onto the table with a clatter, stabbing into the crust before Neil or Adam can comment on how nice the tree design turned out in the golden-brown top. Adam slides away from the table to get them clean desert plates. 

Ronan yells, “And the ice-cream from the freezer. Top left, not the sugar free shit!”

The fruit is sweet, earthier in flavor than any apple Neil’s eaten before. It tastes rich, creamy and almost like custard though Neil knows there are no eggs in this pie. Andrew hums approvingly, mouth wrapped firmly around the spoon as he thoroughly cleans it of ice cream. His eyes are shut as he savors each bite. Neil shakes his head fondly. He’s seen Andrew eat an entire tub of ice-cream like this, completely inward focused and in love with his spoon. 

Adam sets down his fork. “Thank you for the pie.” 

Ronan doesn’t bother to swallow before echoing the thanks. 

Neil shrugs. “Andrew secretly likes to cook.” Andrew jabs Neil with an unsurprisingly sharp elbow. Neil takes the blow with good humor. “You really don’t mind if we stay the night?”

“You’re more than welcome to, we have enough rooms.”

“And there’s enough pie left for breakfast,” Ronan puts in, while helping himself to a second piece. 

 

The bedroom in the octagonal shape of the turret. One set of walls has ceiling height bookshelves with more tomes on welsh history than Neil has ever seen in one place. The wall towards the door to the hall is covered with cloth silhouettes of trees. Pasted to the ceiling above them is a miniaturized version of the town in card stock and cardboard. It’s odd to look up and find a map of where he is staring back down at him. Andrew’s eyes track over the space. He nods, so Neil unslings his bag to drop it on the foot of the bed. 

“The bathroom is across the hall, two doors down,” Adam says, directing Neil’s attention with two fingers. If you want to shower don’t worry about it, we have an en suite and there’s more than enough hot water even if they’re both running at once. Do you need anything else?”

“No,” Andrew says. 

“Thank you,” Neil adds. Adam nods to them both once and retreats up the hall. There are small little balls of light nestled against the moldings along the hallway floor, one every few feet. Upon closer inspection they appear to be little, perfect mushrooms, curving delicately out of the base of the wall. There are no clear sockets to power them, but they mark a clear glowing path to the bathroom. 

 

Andrew ushers Neil into bed first before climbing in himself and turning around to face the door, between Neil and anyone who might burst in. Neil takes a slow breath. The room has a faint odor of old books and something almost green and foresty, like the tree silhouettes could be moving in a faint night breeze, curving up over the bed until their dark branches wound through the town inverted above them. Neil closes his eyes, breathing slow, pressing back firmly against Andrew and feeling the rise and fall of Andrew’s breaths through his own shoulders. 

“I refuse to put trees on our walls.” Andrew says, when Neil clearly hasn’t fallen asleep yet. 

“But you’re not opposed to a gym, or an equipment room?”

“If you use the gym,” Neil can feel Andrew shrug, “but you can keep the equipment in your locker, there’s no need to have all that shit in our home.” Neil does not say ‘but exy!’ though he’s sure it would draw a huff from Andrew bordering both amusement and irritation. 

“I’d use the gym equipment. If we had a ping pong table you could beat Nicky at it every time he came over.”

“I refuse to live in a re-creation of our college dorm, Neil.” Andrew says. Neil sighs. Part of the problem is that Neil doesn’t know how to make his own space. He’s had so little practice at it. 

“Well, since we’re already renovating, we can make the kitchen larger.” Andrew doesn’t reply. “And we can buy a big dining table, one that can fit Nicky and Erik, and Aaron and Katelyn, and Kevin and Thea.”

“It’s highly unlikely they’ll all visit at once. And before you start, we are not hosting team dinners,” Andrew cuts him off, “Ever.”

“But you would like the larger kitchen? We could ask for some seeds, plant an apple tree in our back yard.”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but those weren’t apples.”

“They really weren’t, were they.”

“Don’t think about it too much, we’re having them for breakfast,” Andrew advises. His shoulders nudge back against Neil. “We’ll figure it out,” Andrew says with finality and Neil know’s he isn’t talking about what the apples are, or what they’re eating for breakfast.

“Yeah.” Neil agrees, letting his eyes slide shut again. 


End file.
